Quakers urge courage as global climate meeting suspended
Quakers at the United Nations have urged countries to show courage and find compromise after a major climate science meeting was suspended without a budget deal.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, earlier this month but was suspended without agreeing on the IPCC's 2026 budget or projected budgets for 2027-2028.
Countries also failed to agree when its next reports will be finished.
Lindsey Fielder Cook, of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) Geneva, delivered four key interventions during the week-long meeting, including during the closing session.
“Eight billion people need access to this assessed science," she said in her final intervention. “This is not a game. This is real life and people are already dying."
She urged delegates to “find the middle ground", adding “there is still time."
The IPCC was set up in 1988 to collate and assess climate science for governments. Its reports are used by governments and the public, and increasingly in court cases challenging weak climate action.
As the effects of climate change worsen and the reports gain influence, the IPCC's meetings have become more political.
A small number of countries are questioning the IPCC's role and authority, QUNO said. This was the fifth meeting in a row to discuss the delivery date for the seventh set of reports.
Weapons and climate funding
In an intervention on the IPCC budget, Fielder Cook compared the IPCC's costs with military spending.
She said: “With overall funding for the UN decreasing, and annual military spending worldwide increasing now to 2.9 trillion US dollars, we note - for example - that the cost of one B1 bomber is 2.1 billion US dollars, and the cost of one B1 bomb is 12 million, more than the IPCC budget for next year."
She asked delegates to “bring home determination to prioritise funding for life-giving efforts as with the IPCC".
QUNO has been an accredited IPCC observer under the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) since 2017. To its knowledge, it is the only active independent faith-based organisation making formal interventions at the IPCC.